Chamonix Week, Monday 31st August 2009 - Gran Paradiso

We spent a couple of hours in the morning at the Guides Crag at Les Gaillands in Chamonix, going over prussicking techniques in case of a fall into a crevasse, followed by a couple of quick climbs.

Mike checking out routes at Les Gaillands. Me, Stevie and Mike on the crags doing some easy climbing in the sun. Just before lunch, we set off through the Mont Blanc Tunnel for Italy and Gran Paradiso. We set off in the heat for the Vittorio Emmanuel Hut at 2732 m, set in the middle of the italian National Park of the Gran Paradiso (Parco del Gran Paradiso) . The new building was built in 1961, offering lodging and food for about 190 people. En route to the hut.

At last the hut comes into view!

And a well earned beer before dinner and an early night. Not a bad view whilst we dried our socks on the fence and ate Mikes free peanuts! A dark-o-clock start, gave us clear skies with hardly any wind and the occaisional glimpse of a shooting star. We set off along the moraines and scrambly path in the dark by the light of head torches and climbed up through the clouds. As we climbed higher, the sun started to rise, Mont Blanc in the distance came into view. "One day son, all this could be yours!" Stopping for a quick breather as we slogged up to the final zig-zags. It was quite a busy route, with a couple of crevasses to negtiate and as the track got steeper there was a ladder to cross the bergschrund just below the rocky summit ridge. The summit ridge was quite busy with people jostling for position and squeezing past each other to get to the true summit at 4,061m and have their photo taken with Madonna; sorry the Madonna! The summit itself with the Madonna and a lot of down on the right! Looking back across to where we came from, with a few teams still en route. There was also a smaller Madonna further along the ridge, but nobody seemed to want to go there? (Mont Blanc in the distance). Eventually we had to descend after a short abseil/lower off the ridge to regain the track, and our crampons! On the way down we got a closer look at some of the crevasses that cross the glacier. It was a hot descent and a welcome relief to remove some layers and stop for a snack and take a final look up our route of ascent earlier that morning. It was then another hour or so down to the hut and then after a quick lunch, we were off again to descend all the way back to the valley and the return drive to France.